Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary

Widget's Eye Surgery Goes Well

Dr. Brenda Culver, our primary care vet in Helena who is also our resident eye expert, performed surgery on blind Widget's glaucoma eye this afternoon.  She removed the internal part of Widget's left eye -- the cornea, lens, iris, etc. -- and implanted a prosthesis inside the globe of her eye.  This will give Widget the appearance of a 'normal' eye while eliminating the painful pressure.  I took this photo of Widget this morning, before Alayne drove her to Helena for the surgery.

Brenda (pictured here) called this evening with good news.  The operation was routine and Widget's recovery from anesthesia was uneventful.  She said Widget will need to wear a cone on her head for the next two weeks, and once we're past three weeks, the chances of Widget's body rejecting the prosthetic will drop dramatically.  Of course, we'll be on pins and needles until we reach that point.

I had asked Brenda to take photos of the prosthesis itself, and that's what you see here.  Brenda e-mailed this photo tonight.  This fits inside the globe -- the white part of the eye.  In Widget's case, this was an alternative to enucleation, or complete removal of the eye, and as a surgical procedure, it costs about the same.  If all continues to go well, little Widget will still look pretty much like she did this morning.

Widget is resting comfortably and hopefully we'll be able to pick her up tomorrow afternoon.  We'll keep you posted.

Introducing ... Kathryn!

This is our second employee, Kathryn S., who just started work at the sanctuary today.  She joins our first hire, Beth, who came on board last September.  Beth's reaction to having a new colleague to help with the workload: "Awesome!"

Before coming to the sanctuary, Kathryn was working as a biological researcher in a joint U.S. Forest Service/University of Montana project.  She was also working part-time as a veterinary technician.  Kathryn holds a B.A. from Michigan State University and recently just earned a B.S. in Biology from the University of Montana. 

In the photo with Kathryn are her dogs Walker (in the foreground) and Weezi.  In the background is the newest addition to Kathryn's family, a 6-month old Lab named Tex.

You may be able to see that Tex has a shoulder injury.  Well, one night a few weeks ago a woman brought Tex to the emergency vet clinic  where Kathryn was working.  The dog had been hit by a car and was badly injured.  Tex needed major surgery.  His owner wasn't able to afford it and was going to euthanize him instead.  Kathryn couldn't let that happen.  She decided to pay for the surgery herself, nurse him back to health, and adopt him.  Tex is on the mend and tonight Kathryn and I removed the staples from his incision site.

Now all three dogs can "go to the office" with Kathryn every day!

(Click on photo for larger image.)

Is She ... Dead Or Alive?

Here's blind Callie, again pretending she can't hear us calling her to go outside before bedtime.  This is actually one of her better "I'm dead" poses.  She was absolutely still.  Even the usual tell-tail (yep, that's a pun) sign of life stirring in the otherwise motionless body ... her little tail wagging back-and-forth ... wasn't in play here.  (She's learning.)

But yes, she was very much alive. 

Blind Hanna Arrives At The Ranch

Our Saturday started early with the arrival of Hanna, a blind Appaloosa mare from North Carolina.  We had agreed to take her a few weeks ago after getting a call from her owner, a riding instructor named Annette S.  Hanna had been one of Annette's lesson mares for many years, and was a real favorite of her students.  Annette had lost the lease on her property and had to move her riding operation to another farm that couldn't accommodate a blind mare.

Annette thought she had found a place for Hanna with a horse rescue in Virginia, but the arrangement fell through and she suddenly was running out of time.  No other horse rescues would take a blind horse.  Annette offered to pay the full cost of shipping Hanna out to us.  (This in itself is very unusual, because most people who call us hoping to place a blind horse here don't want to spend another dollar on the animal, let alone $1,200 or more to ship it.)

I originally told Annette 'no' ... we had only one open stall space left in Beauty's Barn and planned to save that for an emergency case, and we were reserving the only other stall space for a blind horse caught up in a court case in Great Falls, Montana.  (We still don't know whether that horse is coming here or not.)

But I could tell how crushed Annette was when I said we couldn't take Hanna.  I hung up the phone  and felt awful.  Alayne and I talked and we finally agreed to give Hanna the stall we were saving for an emergency case.  I called Annette back with the news.  She was elated ... and then she cried.  She was just so relieved to have found a place for her beloved mare.

We got in touch with our horse transportation outfit, Grand Champion Horse Transportation, and began planning Hanna's trip out West.  Jeff Marks, who owns Grand Champion, has hauled several blind horses for us in recent years, including Nikki who was just a few months old at the time.

In the first photo Jeff is beginning to unload Hanna.  This was the first time we'd seen her.  She's a very sweet and pretty mare, and a big girl, too.  She came right out of the trailer without a problem, as you see in the second photo.  In this photo Hanna is in her stall in Beauty's Barn, where we fed her breakfast before turning her out into a corral to get some fresh Rocky Mountain air and exercise.  By the end of the day, she already seemed to be settling in just fine.

(Click on photos for larger image.)

11 Tons Of Hay In A Day!

We had several incredible volunteers help out today, and we got tons done.  Literally.  On the trailer is our ace hay-moving crew ... Nate, Amy, Juana and Chris.  We moved 11 tons of hay from our neighbor's hay barn over to Scout's Barn, then stacked it clear to the rafters.  I took the photo after our first or second load in the morning ... by the end of the day, we didn't look this good!  That was 22,000 pounds of hay, and my-oh-my, did we feel it.  We stuffed Scout's Barn full, then took most of the remaining bales over to Lena's Barn and stacked the final 10 bales over by the sighted horse corral. 

While we were moving hay on a snowy day, our volunteer Kathy was busy scrubbing out the water tanks in the horse corrals and filling them.  You can see from this photo just how big these tanks are ... this one is 150 gallons, and we have some that are 300 gallons. 

But before Kathy could fill tanks, we had to troubleshoot our barn well, which had failed yesterday.  We couldn't track down our well-driller, and by this morning we were beginning to despair.  Then Nate and Amy arrived, and I remembered Nate was an engineer.  So I asked Nate to see if he could figure out what was wrong with the well.  Sure enough, he isolated the problem to a faulty power switch for the pump.  We cannibalized a switch from another outlet, he re-wired it, and voila! -- we had water again!

(Every family should have at least one engineer, don't you think?  Alayne has a law degree and I have an international relations degree, and as a result neither one of us is any good at this truly useful stuff!)

Thanks to all these wonderful folks who were such a huge help today!

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Cody Gets Adopted ... By Beth!

Cody, the puppy from Wyoming who survived parvo, has a new Mom ... our employee Beth!  After Cody came back from the hospital, it took only a few days for Beth to fall in love with this wonderful little boy.  We realized she was quietly developing a powerful bond with him, and when Beth asked if she could adopt him, we were delighted to say "Yes!"

So Cody follows Beth everywhere as she makes her rounds across the ranch.  He stays by her side, never venturing far, and tags along as she walks from one place to another.

We wanted Cody to be adopted by someone we knew -- he really is a special dog -- and now we'll get to enjoy him as he grows up here at the ranch.

I took the photo of Beth and Cody late this afternoon.  That's not an iceberg behind Beth ... just one of our many big snowbanks from plowing the drive.

(Click on photo for larger image.)

Widget's Eye

Dr. Bostwick called today to say Widget's bloodwork looked great, which ruled out other possible explanations for the odd episodes we've seen in her recently.  So this morning I talked with Dr. Brenda Culver, our primary care vet in Helena who's also our go-to person for eye issues, about Dr. Bostwick's evaluation of Widget.  I told Brenda we discovered that the pressure in her glaucoma eye had zoomed to 60 units of mercury.  (High end of normal is 20.) 

Brenda immediately connected the elevated pressure to the behavior changes as a potential explanation.  She said our veterinary ophthalmologist in Spokane, Dr. Bill Yakely, has seen cases of otherwise mysterious behavior changes in dogs finally be explained by pressure spikes in their eyes.  Bringing the pressure under control, either medically or by removing the eye, made the odd behavior disappear.  That means the only way we will be able to determine this is after the fact.

Unfortunately, given the three-times normal pressure in Widget's eye, Brenda did not think we could bring it down with medication.  She had cautioned us over the years that we could eventually lose control of the pressure in her eye, and this is what happened.  So she recommended we pursue surgery to bring relief to Widget. 

The good news here is that we have an alternative to just removing the eye.  Because the globe of her eye -- the white part that holds everything -- is still healthy, we can actually take out the inner eye with the lens, cornea, iris, and all the built-up fluid that's causing the pressure, and surgically implant a prosthesis inside the globe.  This is not a glass eye as you'd commonly think of it, because the outer eye will still be there and alive and attached to ocular muscles.  What's inside the eye will be 'fake.'  This is purely cosmetic and won't matter a bit to Widget, but for all of us who adore her bug-eyed little face, we'd sure like to keep that eye in if we can.

There is a chance her body will reject the prosthesis as a foreign object ... it can take up to 6 weeks or more before we'll know if it will be rejected ... and she'll need daily medications to reduce the chances of rejection.  But we did this on our blind sled dog Dusty two years ago, and it worked perfectly.  If you look at him today, you can't tell his remaining eye isn't 'real.'  Thus we know what's involved and what the risks are.

Brenda ordered the prosthesis this afternoon, and if it arrives by Monday, she'll do the surgery that afternoon.  If not, then surgery will be Tuesday.

(If you're wondering why this wasn't an option for Luke, it's because his entire eye was chronically infected.  With glaucoma, the pressure is internal, leaving the exterior of the eye -- the globe -- healthy and intact.)

The first photo of Widget was from Dr. Bostwick's exam room yesterday.  The second photo I took a few minutes ago, as I was writing this at 9:30 p.m.  Widget is sound asleep on the bed in my office, oblivious to what I'm posting about her.

(Click on photos for larger image.)

Widget Gets Checked Out

I took our blind Beagle/Dachshund mix, Widget, into Missoula today for an evaluation by our internal medicine specialist, Dr. Dave Bostwick.  Widget has had some odd episodes in the past several weeks ... she'll suddenly get very quiet, her usually upright tail will drop, and she'll act zoned out for a few minutes.  A couple of times Alayne has picked her up during these episodes and Widget will be blank ... not unconscious, just more spaced out than anything.  Then, suddenly, she'll snap out of it and be her normal boisterous, bossy self. 

These don't seem like typical seizures, and there are no tremors or the other symptoms you'd expect from that kind of event.  The frequency of these episodes has increased, and when the last one occurred earlier this week, we decided it was time to have her checked out.

So Dave did a thorough physical exam and neurological evaluation, he drew blood (no test results yet), and then conducted an ultrasound.  In the first photo Dave's doing the ultrasound.  He's holding the probe underneath Widget, pressing it against her abdomen.  The dark circular blob on the right of the screen is Widget's bladder.  All of her organs looked great, her heart checked out fine, and Dave could find nothing at this point to explain what might be going on.  He said it's possible we're seeing  the precursors to seizure activity, and we might have to wait and see what develops.  The bloodwork may tell us more when we get the results tomorrow.

This photo shows Widget on the exam table after Dave completed the ultrasound.  "Whew!,"  she seemed to be saying.  We did find out the pressure in Widget's left eye -- the one with glaucoma -- has suddenly shot up to 60 units of mercury, well above normal range.  (Normal is less than 20.)  So we'll be talking with Dr. Brenda Culver, our primary care vet and all-around "eye expert," tomorrow to decide how to bring the pressure back down.

From Dave's clinic Widget and I resumed our errands around Missoula.  This included stops at Cenex for equine senior grain (750 pounds), wood shavings (10 bales), alfalfa pellets (50 pounds), and salt blocks (five 50-pounders); PetsMart for cat litter and salt block holders; the Post Office to mail a box of newsletters to an awesome volunteer in Nevada who is taking them around to vet clinics and other places where animal-friendly people congregate; Staples for office supplies; the bank to deposit donation checks; and, oh yes, the Good Food Store to get groceries for two humans.  This photo is what the back of the truck looked like in the PetsMart parking lot.  (The empty space in the corner I reserved for our groceries!)

When I came out of PetsMart and opened the truck door, this is what I found.  Widget had climbed over from the back seat and was in the driver's seat, apparently trying to figure out how to start the truck.  Fortunately her legs were too short to reach the pedals.  By the time I got the camera, she had worked her way out of the driver's seat and onto the center console, acting rather nonchalant about the whole affair.

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Postscript:  When Widget and I left Missoula after dark, it was 41 degrees.  When we got to the ranch, it was 5 degrees.

(Click on photos for larger images.)

Snowy Mountains

I didn't have any animal-related items to post this evening, so I thought I'd show you a couple of photos I took late this afternoon as the sun was going down.  This first photo is the view facing northeast from the ranch.  The gate in the foreground leads to one 10-acre pasture and another 30-acre pasture beyond.  In the distance are the peaks of the Scapegoat Wilderness Area, part of the enormous Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex. 

The second photo shows the curtain of ice and snow sliding off the roof of Scout's Barn.  See that door in the middle of the wall, behind the mound of snow?  The door opens onto an interior shed for horses.  Our first few winters here we had to dig that door open all the time ... sometimes daily, depending on storms.  Then we got smart and asked one of our wonderful volunteers, Wayne S. from Seattle, to take down the south wall to the shed (it's around the other corner).  Now the horses have free access to the shed, snow is not an issue, and that curtain of snow and ice can slide down all it wants! 

This shed is used by three of our disabled horses ... Kiowa, Copper Kid and Cactus Jack.  (Who comes up with these names?  This crew sounds like an outlaw gang from the 1880's!)  The horses were busy eating their evening hay off to the left in the corral while I was taking the photos.

(Click on photos for larger image.)

Luke Comes Home From The Hospital

I drove over to Helena late this afternoon to pick up the animals we left at the vet hospital on Thursday:  Callie the blind Dachshund, Cody the puppy, Snowball the cat, and Luke the blind dog. 

Because of the chronic and painful condition of Luke's eyes, our vet Dr. Brenda Culver went ahead with the surgery to remove both of them.

Although he's only been with us for a few weeks, this sweet boy was so happy to hear my voice when I went to get him out of his kennel at the clinic.  He was sitting there barking, but when he heard my voice, he stopped, got quiet, then cocked his head to listen and get a fix on me.  When he realized it was me, he was all wiggling and ready to go!

Alayne took these photos of me with Luke tonight in one of the dog cottages by the main house.  He couldn't get enough loving this evening ... we tried to get him to sit still long enough so both of us could be looking at the camera, but he just wanted to crawl into my lap or roll over on his back for a tummy scratch. 

It is amazing to watch how fast animals bounce back from surgeries like this.  Luke was already eagerly exploring the yard tonight, and he was bouncy and playful in the cottage.  No moping around for this boy!

To everyone who's written in to tell us of their own dogs who had to have eyes removed, thank you for your wonderful comments.  We really appreciated them. 

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If you're wondering about the other animals who came home today: Callie had a dental, Cody was neutered, and Snowball had teeth removed because of a chronic oral inflammation called stomatitis.  All are doing fine!

(Click on photos for larger image.)